The Solo
by SilverRowan4
Summary: After Lisanna's return, a prolonged reunion leaves Lucy needing rent money. Not wishing to interrupt Natsu's time with his friend, she takes a job by herself, but the outcome isn't what anyone expected.


**Hey guys. I know it's been a while, but instead of giving you some lame-o excuse for my absence, I'm just gonna give you the first chapter of a new story I've been working on!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail. **

* * *

She wasn't going to be mad.

If someone she really care about had died and then miraculously returned two years later, she would be overjoyed, ecstatic even. If it had been her mom, she wouldn't have eyes for anyone else. But it had been three months. Surely, that was long enough for the original novelty to wear off, right? She didn't want him to stop spending time with Lisanna, she just wished that he would spend a little time with _her._

She certainly wasn't going to be hurt or jealous.

Lucy chewed on her lip as she stole glances at Natsu and Lisanna, who were sitting at a table in the middle of the guild hall. Natsu was telling stories Natsu-style – lots of theatrics and pyrotechnics – and they were surrounded by a group of people who had grown up in the guild, like Elfman, Cana, Jet, Droy, and many others. Lucy was sitting alone at the bar, nursing a strawberry shake. Levy was at the Magnolia Library researching a magical tome for a mission, so Lucy couldn't count on her to come and save her from loneliness today. She saw Wendy and her eyes brightened, but her hopes were dashed when she saw the blushing Sky Dragon Slayer present a job request to an equally red Romeo. And it looked like Happy and Carla where both going on the job with them.

Lucy sighed, and focused her gaze on the half-empty glass in front of her. It wasn't just that she was lonely. Her rent was due in a couple of days, and she only had 30,000 jewels scrounged together to pay her beastly landlady. She scowled at the shake. She couldn't even ask Erza and Gray to go on a mission with her because they were in Crocus handling business with the Magic Council that Gramps didn't want to be bothered with.

That left manning up and convincing Natsu to go a job with her as one of Lucy's only options. She took a hearty pull of her shake and forced herself over to the mission board. Anything to put off interrupting the three-month reunion she wasn't a part of.

Arms crossed and hip jutted out to the side, Lucy scanned the board. She had to find a job they could finish quickly and paid enough for her to meet her rent after she and Natsu split the reward and paid for any destruction that seemed to follow her partner wherever he went.

After a period of slow searching, she found a request that looked promising. Lucy reached up and pulled it off the board to examine more closely.

'_SHALITH ROUND-UP' _was printed in bold lettering across the top of the flyer. Lucy frowned. Shaliths? Weren't those the living-metal creatures? Crux eagerly supplied her with the information. Lucy smiled softly, and traced a finger over his key. _Thank you, _she whispered appreciatively to him across the realms.

Shaliths were magical creatures with metal bodies, and different breeds were made of different elements. They looked like scorpions. As they grew, shaliths shed their skins, which were gathered and sold to forges across the country to make magical weapons and armor. It was said that shalith metal was finer and stronger than anything dug from the ground, because it was saturated with magic from the moment the creature was born. However, due to hunting and mistreatment of the species, there were few shaliths found in the wild. They were an endangered species, and that made equipment forged from their shed skins rare and expensive. Due to the difficulties of raising them in captivity, there were only a few shalith ranches in existence, and the biggest one was ten miles outside of Magnolia. And they were the ones offering the job.

Lucy scanned the request with growing excitement. A nest of young iron shaliths had broken out of their pen and were lost somewhere in the woods. The ranch wanted mages to come out, find them, and round them up. She checked the reward, and had to hold back a squeal of excitement. 150,000 jewels! That was 75,000 a piece, and they would be in the woods, so there wouldn't really be anything for Natsu to destroy! (Lucy quickly knocked on the wooden frame of the request board. No need to jinx a good thing). That gave her enough money to pay rent, deposit some in her miniscule savings, buy food, and replace things her teammates had destroyed around her house. The ranch was even offering to pay for travel, but at this point, she was willing to walk a twenty mile round-trip just to spend time with her best friend.

This was it. Lucy grinned. She had found the perfect job! She didn't realize that she had whispered this out loud until Nab let out a groan and walked dejectedly over to the bar.

Now for the hard part. Lucy's grin faded as she turned to evaluate her next step. The group around Natsu and Lisanna had dispersed, leaving the Dragon Slayer and Take-Over mage alone at their little table. Natsu had finished his story, and Lisanna was talking now. He was focused on her story with a rapt expression, all of his attention focused on her. Lucy smiled at his expression. He was so cute when he was like this. The smile fell from her face. _He used to look at me like that._

She pushed away the self-pitying thoughts. _It's not a competition! _Lucy scolded herself. _Natsu has the right to hang out with anyone he wants. It's not like I have a monopoly on his company._ She forced herself to start walking towards the duo, hands clasped around the job request and tucked behind her back. With every step she took, she rehearsed what she was going to say. _Hey Natsu! Wanna go on a mission? _She figured using his usual line would be the best option.

But just as she reached their table, smiling, invitation ready to leave her mouth, Natsu and Lisanna stood up. He slung his arms around her shoulders, and Lucy felt her heart drop. She stopped walking, but her mouth hadn't receive the 'Abort Mission!' signal. "Hey, Natsu…" Her face turned red as the soft words left her mouth. To her ears, she sounded pathetic.

The two in front of her turned around, seemingly surprised to see her there. Lisanna murmured a greeting and a toothy grin crossed Natsu's face. "Hey Lucy! I haven't seen ya' around lately!"

_Yeah, cause you're too wrapped up In Lisanna. _Lucy shuffled her feet, hands still concealing the request behind her back. "Um, hi. Um, I was just wondering, if you were busy or anything…" She trailed off. The tips of Lucy's ears were burning, and she was cursing herself in her head. Mavis, she _did_ sound pathetic. _Idiot!_

But Natsu, being the dense idiot he usually was, didn't notice anything. "Actually, yeah." He shot a glance and an even bigger grin at Lisanna. "Me and Lisanna are goin' on a fishing trip!" He tightened his arm around the slim girl. "Just like old times, eh Lis?" Lisanna smiled back at him.

_It's a date, it's a date, oh my Mavis it's totally a date. _Lucy's heart finished its journey south and shattered in the pit of her stomach. She forced a brittle smile to remain on her face, but Natsu must have noticed that something was off.

"Ne, Luce, you okay?" He cocked his head to the side, dark eyes concerned. Of _course_, he was using her nickname _now._ Now that her heart was in pieces and she was struggling not to break down, literally in the middle of the guild hall. She waved him off with one hand.

"No, no. I'm fine. You two have fun on your….fishing trip." Lucy flashed them an overly bright smile and spun around, hugging the request to her chest as she hurried back to the bar. Lisanna and Natsu, looked at each other, slightly confused, and Natsu just shrugged.

"Eh, she always acts weird. Let's go fishing!" He grabbed Lisanna's hand and started to pull her out of the guild hall. Lisanna turned to glance at Lucy again, still worried. She didn't know this version of the Celestial Mage very well, but she still thought something was wrong. From all the stories she had heard, this Natsu and Lucy were like the Edolas pair she knew, nearly inseparable, but the entire time she had been back, she hadn't seen them together for more than ten minutes at a time. She turned back to Natsu and smiled, but the uneasiness still rested in her heart. She would have to talk to Mira when she got back, but for now, she didn't want to ruin this fishing trip for her childhood friend.

"Yeah, Natsu! I can't wait."

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Lucy made it back to the bar, and turned to watch her first love run off with his childhood flame. She mechanically turned back to her strawberry shake and stared at the melting treat. Her heart throbbed from its new residence in the pit of her stomach, and her head felt fuzzy. She was so distracted, she didn't notice when Mira called her name.

"Lucy? Lucy, Earth to Lucy!" Mira snapped her fingers in front of Lucy's face. The girl blinked in surprise.

"What? Oh, sorry Mira." Lucy gave Mira an overly bright smile.

Surprisingly, Mira had been the first person to take Lisanna's miraculous reappearance in stride. The Strauss siblings had secluded themselves for two weeks before deciding they were ready to share Lisanna with the guild. After those two weeks though, Mira seemed to be back to normal, even if she did keep one eye on her baby sister most of the time. Who could blame her?

But Mira was one of the few people in the guild who paid attention to Lucy these days.

Mira peered at Lucy. "I said, do you want to take that mission?" Mira gestured to the wrinkled request in Lucy's hands. Still out of it, Lucy looked down at the shalith job. Her hands clenched on it again and she forced herself to look at Mira and smile.

"Yeah, my rent is due in a couple of days, and I haven't been able to pull it all together yet…" She handed Mira the flyer.

She briefly scanned the request, before pulling her log book out from under the bar. The heavy cover slammed down on the counter-top as Mira opened it and began to flip through the pages.

"Let's see…" She ran her finger down the neat columns until she reached the next empty space. Pulling out her quill, Mira wrote down the date, job title, and the name of the mage taking the request. She glanced up at Lucy. "This is rather strange, Lucy. Usually, your team makes sure you have it all together at least a week in advance." Mira signed the ledger with a flourish, and looked at the request again. "Oh, and its close!" She leaned on the counter and winked at the Celestial Spirit Mage. "Natsu will enjoy that."

Mira pulled back in surprise as Lucy abruptly stood.

"Yeah, I guess." She spoke quickly, forcing the words past the lump in her throat. She grabbed the flyer off the counter top. "Well, I guess I better go get ready. Bye Mira." Lucy gave her friend a wave and walked stiffly out of the guild, waiting until she had turned a corner before she started running.

Lucy could feel the hot tears filling her eyes. She blinked them back, shaking her head fiercely. She sped up, using the exercise to get her mind away from her thoughts. She focused on her breathing, the wind in her face, the comforting pull and burn of her muscles. It worked.

Sort of.

Lucy made it to the front of her apartment before tears started to trickle down her face. With shaking hands, she forced her key into the door, shoving it open and throwing herself through the doorway. She spun around, and slammed the door shut. Then she really started crying.

Lucy leaned her head against the door, slowly sinking to the floor as her body shook with the force of her sobs. And she hated it.

Hated that she was crying.

Hated that she was so pathetic she couldn't ask her _partner_ to go on a job with her.

Hated that her heart was breaking over a boy who was in love with someone else.

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**Yeah, new story... Don't worry, I'm still working on the other ones! I'm going to leave you with this for now, but I'll give you more of an insight to my thought process for this story after the next chapter (which is almost done).**

**Rowan out!**


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